Geelong won the Australian Football League grand final yesterday.

Which in many ways is unimportant. Basically AFL football is one bunch of businessmen versus another.

Most sport in Australia is now dominated by big business.

Which means that the war that matters is being lost.

The war against money-worship.

* * *

Are the above observations too negative? Too pessimistic?

Perhaps so.

There IS something a little bit good about Geelong.

Geelong Football Club deserves congratulations for its recent stand supporting the Federal Government’s proposed poker machine reforms — stepping out of line with the AFL and other clubs.

Their stand is a pretty half-hearted one . . . they aren’t proposing capping all poker machines . . . they certainly aren’t talking about banning all pokies.

BUT they are less immoral and corrupt over this subject than all other clubs appear to be.

“The only issue at stake is the high intensity machines where gamblers can churn through up to $1000 an hour,” said Geelong president Colin Carter.

“They should set a loss limit before they start, and I struggle to see how that is necessarily a bad thing.”

Well said.

* * *

This blog, like all deep-thinking blogs, has, since childhood, supported Carlton Football Club in the AFL/VFL.

But one may rethink that.

Carlton has always been disgustingly pro-alcohol.

Now it is too compromised to take the rather minor step of siding with Geelong in resisting the addictive scourge of poker machines.

Independent federal MP, Andrew Wilkie, threatens to stop supporting the Gillard government if they do not legislate poker machine reform.

He wants gamblers using high-intensity machines (which accept $10 bets) to be compelled to set a limit on their losses before they start playing.

When their loss reaches the cap the machine will lock them out.

Low intensity machines (accepting $1 bets only) will not be capped.

At present, Australia has 200,000 high intensity poker machines.

Gamblers routinely lose about $1200 per hour on them.

* * *

Mr Wilkie and fellow anti-pokies MP, Senator Xenophon, have been meeting church leaders, seeking their moral support.

Let’s watch the “Salvation Army”, which depends on handouts from non-members — especially community clubs — to survive.

The clubs are hinting that if the Salvos keep interfering with their exploitation of the vulnerable poor, they will withhold their donations.

The Catholic Church has no cred whatever on this issue, running its own bingo and poker machine-dependent clubs.

Likewise the AFL. Embarrassed to look as sociopathic as the NRL, they mumble about preferring “education” to capping . . . .

Money seems to speak all languages.

* * *

Wilkie and Xeno are themselves a bit suspect, too – they probably have no experience olf being poor — and probably rarely meet anybody non-affluent.

Their willingness for $1 dollar, “low-intensity”, machines to go un-capped shows their remoteness from reality.

Low-intensity pokie patrons can lose $120 per hour.

For them, that is big money — the cash left for paying bills and feeding the family is decimated.

Common sense demands that all poker machines be capped.

Clubs that cannot survive without poker machines should not survive.

Churches should preach that gambling is greed — and incompatible with love for God and his vulnerable children.

The local Council of Echuca, Victoria, has received an application for a permit to open an “adult” (i.e. porn) shop.

Council has also received ten formal objections from members of the public.

Just as interesting as the proposition itself is the coverage given it on ABC Local Radio . . . .

Today it presented an interview with Councillor Williams — who favours granting the permit.

Did we next hear from another Councillor against granting it?

Or from one of the objectors?

We did not.

It was the ABC.

* * *

What did come next was an interview with a spokeswoman of the Eros Association.

The EA calls itself “Australia’s national adult retail and entertainment association . . . We function in the same way as other peak industry groups like the Pharmacy Guild”.

Exactly like the Pharmacy Guild?

She said research reveals that communities accepting sex shops do not experience increased crime.

Sounds unlikely.

Anyway, to people committed to the principle of “loving your neighbour”, that isn’t the point.

* * *

If human beings are spiritual beings capable of relating to God — more than just animals or robots — then love for neighbour means wanting what is best for him/her . . . .

Meaning that he/she come to know, love and serve God above all else.

In this context, “research” cannot help.

Whether people exposed to local sex shops are more (or less) in touch with God – not easy data to access.

But we know the answer anyway.

According to recent research, watching television can be as dangerous for health as smoking tobacco.

Every hour you spend viewing the instrument shortens one’s life by 22 minute. * *

The remedy, according to the experts is to spend 30 minutes per day doing some physical exercise for the sake of your physical health

* * *

Looking at this another way, every hour you watch the thing shortens your mental life by that entire hour.

Television watching is addictive.

It is hard to stop.

When I tell people that I have no TV set and have not watched television for about 20 years, they just look at me.

It is a good conversation-stopper.

* * *

Addictions aggravate each other. Watching television tends to be associated with snacking on junk food, drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes and in being more interested in media celebrities than in God.

That is the big problem.

Not only does television endanger your life on this earth, it is giving you a terrible preparation for eternity.

Perhaps we should all do 30 minutes spiritual exercise every day for the sake of our spiritual health.

Even just a few minutes.

Read a few verses from the Bible, say the Our father and the Hail Mary.

If you reorganised your life a bit, you could even go to Mass.

( * * Australian diabetes, obesity and lifestyle study, as reported in Herald Sun, 16 August 2011)

I read the other day that explicit “hardcore” pornography is now the seventh biggest industry in the USA.

New internet sites appear daily — making porn easier to access now than ever before.

The most enthusiastic consumers are young men with still immature brains.

The human brain isn’t fully developed until about age 25.

* * *

Insurance companies deal in reality. They treat under-25 drivers as bad risks.

They don’t pretend that under-25’s are grown up. If they did they would lose money.

Treating 18 year olds as adults is not clever, it is just weakness.

If the porn industry can attract under-25s, they have every chance of creating an addict.

Then they have him for life — barring a miracle of grace.

The addiction is real and literal.

The brain exposed to regular pornography becomes modified by the repeated output of “pleasure hormones”.

The habit becomes wired into the patterns of the brain circuitry itself.

* * *

Although porn sometimes mentions “making love” . . . .

The relationships depicted are those of mutual contempt . . . .

Closer to hate than to  love . . . .

The other person is an object . . . .

Something to exploit . . . .

Not somebody to cherish and relate to selflessly.

* * *

The way to avoid porn addiction is to have nothing to do with porn at all.

Avoid it like the plague.

Remember the traditional Prayer of Contrition:

O my God, I am sorry and beg pardon for all my sins, and detest them above all things,

Because they deserve Thy dreadful punishments,

Because they have crucified my loving Saviour Jesus Christ and, most of all,

Because they offend Thine infinite goodness.

I firmly resolve, by the help of Thy grace,

Never to offend Thee again,

And carefully to AVOID THE OCCASIONS OF SIN.

Amen

Last weekend, police found and detained twenty 13 to 17-year olds at risk and unsupervised in inner Sydney between 10pm and 3am.

They phoned the parents to come and collect them. Ten refused.

Of the twenty, 17 were taken home by police or parents.

Three were accommodated at a youth refuge.

* * *

What about those parents unwilling to come?

Easy to criticise them.

Probably most had been out looking for and trying to collect those same brats a hundred times in recent months.

 . . . . kids who refuse to stay at home — once they’ve raided the fridge and stolen whatever  family property isn’t bolted to the floor.

Many of us parents did really have a go at controlling such young persons, and found it humanly impossible.

Perhaps one should keep chasing them and being nice until one drops dead . . . .

Or would it actually be kinder to tell them, “You’re always welcome home. This is where you belong. But never, never try coming without giving us 48 hours warning.”

* * *

There is no easy answer.

Ideally, prevention is the way.

But we’re stuck with a human nature tainted with Original Sin.

We inherit, and we ourselves pass on: weakness, ignorance, feral instincts and the desire to please other people rather than our Creator.

All of us, young and old, need to get motivated by the fear of God.

The Bible says, “Everyone must die once, and after that be judged by God.”

* * *

Don’t count on second chances . . . or on God being like the tooth fairy (all niceness, no justice) . . . or on Reincarnation (which is manifest nonsense) . . . .

No. We die once, and we take with us what we have turned ourselves into – to judgment and to eternity.

A sobering thought.

.